Should Robots Blush?

Park, Soomi; Healey, Patrick G. T. and Kaniadakis, Antonios. 2021. Should Robots Blush? CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, [Article]

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Abstract or Description

Social interaction is the most complex challenge in daily life. Inevitably, social robots will encounter interactions that are outside their competence. This raises a basic design question: how can robots fail gracefully in social interaction? The characteristic human response to social failure is embarrassment. Usefully, embarrassment signals both recognition of a problem and typically enlists sympathy and assistance to resolve it. This could enhance robot acceptability and provides an opportunity for interactive learning. Using a speculative design approach we explore how, when and why robots might communicate embarrassment. A series of specially developed cultural probes, scenario development and low-fidelity prototyping exercises suggest that: embarrassment is relevant for managing a diverse range of social scenarios, impacts on both humanoid and non-humanoid robot design, and highlights the critical importance of understanding interactional context. We conclude that embarrassment is fundamental to competent social functioning and provides a potentially fertile area for interaction design.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445561

Additional Information:

© 2021 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '21). Yokohama, Japan [virtual], 8-13 May 2021, https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445561.

This work was funded and supported by EPSRC and AHRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Media and Arts Technology (grant number: EP/L01632X/1) of Queen Mary, University of London and Designers in Residence program of the Design Museum, London.

Keywords:

Affective Robotics, CHI 2021, Cultural Probes, Design Workshop, Embarrassment, Human-Robot Interactions, SIGCHI, Speculative Design, Symbolic Interactionism

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Related items in GRO:

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Design

Dates:

DateEvent
6 May 2021Published
12 December 2020Accepted

Item ID:

35048

Date Deposited:

14 Mar 2024 10:06

Last Modified:

14 Mar 2024 10:13

Peer Reviewed:

Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/35048

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